Paris West University Nanterre La Défense

Abstract: Background: Public health recommendations and governmental measures during the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in numerous restrictions on daily living including social distancing, isolation and home confinement. While these measures are imperative to abate the spreading of COVID-19, the impact of these restrictions on health behaviours and lifestyles at home is undefined. Therefore, an international online survey was launched in April 2020, in seven languages, to elucidate the behavioural and lifestyle consequences of COVID-19 restrictions. This report presents the results from the first thousand responders on physical activity (PA) and nutrition behaviours. Methods: Following a structured review of the literature, the “Effects of home Confinement on multiple Lifestyle Behaviours during the COVID-19 outbreak (ECLB-COVID19)” Electronic survey was designed by a steering group of multidisciplinary scientists and academics. The survey was uploaded and shared on the Google online survey platform. Thirty-five research organisations from Europe, North-Africa, Western Asia and the Americas promoted the survey in English, German, French, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese and Slovenian languages. Questions were presented in a differential format, with questions related to responses “before” and “during” confinement conditions. Results: 1047 replies (54% women) from Asia (36%), Africa (40%), Europe (21%) and other (3%) were included in the analysis. The COVID-19 home confinement had a negative effect on all PA intensity levels (vigorous, moderate, walking and overall). Additionally, daily sitting time increased from 5 to 8 h per day. Food consumption and meal patterns (the type of food, eating out of control, snacks between meals, number of main meals) were more unhealthy during confinement, with only alcohol binge drinking decreasing significantly. Conclusion: While isolation is a necessary measure to protect public health, results indicate that it alters physical activity and eating behaviours in a health compromising direction. A more detailed analysis of survey data will allow for a segregation of these responses in different age groups, countries and other subgroups, which will help develop interventions to mitigate the negative lifestyle behaviours that have manifested during the COVID-19 confinement.

Abstract: The use of agent-based models (ABMs) for investigating land-use science questions has been increasing dramatically over the last decade. Modelers have moved from ‘proofs of existence’ toy models to case-specific, multi-scaled, multi-actor, and data-intensive models of land-use and land-cover change. An international workshop, titled ‘Multi-Agent Modeling and Collaborative Planning—Method2Method Workshop’, was held in Bonn in 2005 in order to bring together researchers using different data collection approaches to informing agent-based models. Participants identified a typology of five approaches to empirically inform ABMs for land use science: sample surveys, participant observation, field and laboratory experiments, companion modeling, and GIS and remotely sensed data. This paper reviews these five approaches to informing ABMs, provides a corresponding case study describing the model usage of these approaches, the types of data each approach produces, the types of questions those data can answer, and an ...

Abstract: The conclusions of the European summits since 1992 and the content of the Amsterdam Treaty seem to imply that the employment issue has finally reached the Community agenda. How far does the new approach differ from previous policy? How were the changes of the 1990s achieved? This article reviews previous EU social policy as regards employment issues, then analyses the different elements of the European employment strategy (EES) and offers a preliminary assessment. A major question addressed is how, compared to previous regulation methods, this new process is likely to affect the legitimacy and efficiency of `Social Europe'.

Abstract: We study the exact low energy spectra of the spin 1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on small samples of the kagome lattice of up to N=36 sites. In agreement with the conclusions of previous authors, we find that these low energy spectra contradict the hypothesis of Neel type long range order. Certainly, the ground state of this system is a spin liquid, but its properties are rather unusual. The magnetic ( $$(\Delta S = 1)$$ ) excitations are separated from the ground state by a gap. However, this gap is filled with nonmagnetic ( $$(\Delta S = 0)$$ ) excitations. In the thermodynamic limit the spectrum of these nonmagnetic excitations will presumably develop into a gapless continuum adjacent to the ground state. Surprisingly, the eigenstates of samples with an odd number of sites, i.e. samples with an unsaturated spin, exhibit symmetries which could support long range chiral order. We do not know if these states will be true thermodynamic states or only metastable ones. In any case, the low energy properties of the spin 1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the kagome lattice clearly distinguish this system from either a short range RVB spin liquid or a standard chiral spin liquid. Presumably they are facets of a generically new state of frustrated two-dimensional quantum antiferromagnets.

Abstract: The sexual responsiveness of female canaries, Serinus canaria, to six different types of male song phrases extracted from natural song was tested. Copulation solicitation displays were used as an index of female sexual response. Playbacks were performed several days before and during egg laying (a period of natural sexual responsiveness of the females to song). Female canaries were especially responsive to particular short phrases whose essential features were abrupt frequency fall and short silences. This differential responsiveness occurred whatever the serial position (beginning, middle or end) of the phrase in the song and its serial relationship to other different conspecific phrases as well as the general song context (conspecific or heterospecific phrases). Influences such as early experience or ‘sensory bias’ that may lead to a particular sexual sensitivity of female canaries to these types of song phrases are discussed.